For christ sakes its a bonding wire.....
If any attitude sickens me in aviation, it's apathy. It's always either someone too lazy to do it right and looking for a loophole, or the person who says, "it's not a big deal. Live with it."
Twice in aircraft I've had lightening strikes that burned holes in control surfaces melted through the outer skin, blew out pieces of the radome, and did all manner of damage...all because of improper bonding. I'll spare you the details, but no...it's not "just' a bonding wire. It's put there for a reason.
Among other things, when there's nothing to bond, electricity goes other places. This includes control hinge points, which have a nasty habit of becoming welded in place when no other path exists, under large current flows. Where this isn't occuring, electricity is still seeking alternate paths, and the electrical potential can contribute to corrosion, radio static, and other undesirable effects.
I have to ask, since a bonding strap replacement is a three minute task and hardly rocket science, why a mechanic in his right mind would possibly defer fixing it? I carry bonding braid in my box because it's such a common thing...what idiot would merely see such a simple thing, and then take the trouble to write it up as being deferred (something the mechanic doesn't have the option of doing, and something that doesn't protect you when you fly it because the writeup isn't a legal deferral in the first place)...when the write-up takes longer than the fix, and still doesn't fix the problem? Good grief.
Someone mentioned static wicks. I forget in what context, but with respect to the legality and airworthiness of the item in question, the issue of static wicks is irrelevant.
